Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-03-11
FRIDAY MORNING. MAR. IL. 1887.
THE LEGISLA PURE AND THE
DEBT QUESTION.

The legislature assemblies next Wed
nesday in extra session. Those who COM
pose it would do we'll to spend the short
time permitted, in ascertaining the views
of there people on the debt question in all
its phases and with all its possibilities
For .here are possibilities which have aris-
en- since the persistent war the creditors
have been waging on Virginia in the U. s.
Courts, which year ago would have been
instantly dismissed as impossible. The
attention of the conservative legislator at
this session will be divided between de-
vising some mode Of protecting the State
from the creditors, and REFRESHING propo
sitions, which are sure to come, to repudi-
ate the principal of the debt, outright.
There is no popular feeling, the strength
OF which has been so unhappily marked by
growth in the last two years, as that in
favor. as the people phrase it. Of getting
shut of the whele thing, interest, princi-
pal and all. One need only converse with
former staunch and active advocates of
difference and neutrality has taken the
place of all their stern resolves to-as they
deemed it-preserve the honor Of the Com
monwealtS. And he has only to extend
his inquiries among the original advocates
of REIMBURSEMENT and the Riddleberger
bill to find that the legal proceedings
against Virginia have wrought in those
advocates an Indignant willingness to see
the whole thing repudia.ed. Mr.. Royal
has done mere to manufacture repudiators
In his day than the most extravaganza cam
paign appeals against the upjustness of the
debt ever did in the campaigning days
He has done much to make people earn
estly desiring to pay Twenty Three Mil
lions. now utterly Indifferent to paying
twenty-three cents.
What will be proposed to the legislature,
no one as yet seems to know. The idea of
compromise with the creditors by which
more is to be paid than the Riddleberger
bill calls for, is being advocated by those
who seem to have forgotten the former
efforts at compromise, how quickly the
people repudiated the Mccullough bill
the only act of compromise that took de-
finite shape-and the fact that under the
present rate of taxation only $35 600 can
be left in the Treasury after paying the
Riddleberger interest and the expenses of
the government. There is to be and can be
no compromise" with the creditors, ex-
cept on the basis of increasing the taxes
Should the present legislature adopt any
such compromise is to the last de-
gree improbable-it would be repudiated
at the polls with unanimity far exceed
ing that visited upon the McCulloch bill.
While none can say. at present, what
should be done at this extra session, a
|, calm, practical view of the situation shows
very clearly what should not be done. The
Riddieberger bill should not be abandon
ed, nor modified, nor touched. Once aban-
don that and the legislators are drifting
on sea that contains nothing but danger
If the creditors want a settlement they
can get it by funding under that bill. II
the people want to avoid the oppressive
burden of the old Funding Bill of 1871
they can do it by paying their taxes in
money.
AS political matter, this debt question
should not be considered, but it will be
without doubt, and, in its consideration
the Democrat tic majority will find that ii
will get little help from the Republican
minority in the legislature towards deal
ing with the vexed question. Take the old
rster element out of tht
RepuOi.oce-- p..I W, $40 e.,st Organization
really has no convictions whatever about
the debt, and will be ready to pay all the
creditors claim, or repudiate it, just as
they find the best opportunity for return
to power would arise from either.